Nothing's Gonna Change My World
by Roach Patrol
Summary: Nine times Aang didn't come out of the ice, and then one time he did.


**1:**

Aang is twelve and he is very cold as warm hands pull him out of the ice. Behind him Appa grumbles and shakes like a dog, and in front of him Monk Gyatso is vivid against the blue and the ice, like an unexpected slice of cake against a vast white plate.

"My boy," the monk says with infinite satisfaction, "At last."

Aang feels the first stirrings of unease when he embraces his master and feels an insubstantiality that had not been there before. It is still his beloved teacher, in beads and warm yellow linen, but there is a sense of rice paper worn thin by too many fingers, an absence. Of love? Of years?

"You're older, Monk Gyatso," He says, and his voice trembles a little. He thinks it is because of the cold. "How long was I asleep?"

"Not too long, my precious boy," the monk says, "not too long at all," and clasps him tight to his chest. Aang breaths in the warm smell of him, and thinks that everything is going to be okay.

**2:**

Aang is twelve and he is very cold as burning hands pull him out of the ice. Behind him he can hear Appa grumble and rolls over.

"Aang, are you there? Wake up, it's me," The man crouched over him says, low and almost pleading, "It's me, Kuzon."

Aang squints and blinks against the torchlight. The yellow flames dancing in the man's hand makes his face shadowed, hard to focus on. He doesn't know this man.

"...I used to know a Kuzon," He says slowly.

"That was me." The man says gently, and there's something about his mouth, about the tilt of his eyebrows. He's not lying.

"If you're Kuzon, then-- then what, what _happened_?"

The man that says he is Kuzon opens his mouth, then hesitates. The fire in his palm gutters low, and he clenches it out with his fist. He stands up and turns to his men as if wearing armor is perfectly normal; as if holding a sword is something you just do every day. As if all swords come with scratches in the blade and blood stains on the hilt. He needs a shave but his eyes are still that same bright shining gold that Aang remembers, the same eyes that watched him do tricks in a summer palace three years ago.

Three years would not have turned little Kuzon into a warrior. Would not have made him look so much like his father.

"He sent us here to die, Aang." Kuzon says eventually. The men behind him shift and murmur like birds, all bright glances and sharpness.

"Who?" Aang asks, and trembles. From the cold.

"The man who calls himself my father." Kuzon turns to his men, one heavy armored arm across Aang's thin, shaking shoulders. "But with you our shame is our victory. There is another way! The empire will fall! The empire must fall! The balance _will be restored!_"

The men shake their swords and cheer, and Aang thinks maybe, just maybe, everything will be okay.

**3:**

Aang is twelve and he is very cold as strong hands pull him out of the ice. Somewhere behind him Appa gives a vague wheeze. He squints at the scruffy, muscular man in lordly furs and sparkling green jewels and thinks maybe he knows this man, but it's hard to focus. He has that strange feeling one gets from a mistimed nap, a sense of floating disorientation.

"King Umbu?" He yawns, "What are you doing away from Omashu?"

The man gives a familiar cackle and pats Aang vaguely on the head. "Surely I haven't changed that much, whippersnapper." Around him other grizzled, muscular men are bustling around, clearing ice away from Appa and readying furs and hot drinks. The sun clears the horizon all in a rush and takes twenty years off the man's face, and it hits Aang like a rock. "Wait, you're not the King, you're just old!"

Bumi cracks up, clutching his chest and cackling like he hasn't heard anything so funny in years. It strikes Aang that maybe he hasn't.

"I didn't mean any offense--" Aang begins, confused, and is silenced by a be-ringed finger and a familiar snort.

"There's a war on, boy." The man who is not quite King –not quite his father- says, "And we're going to need all the offense we can get."

He watches the sunlight gild the crown on Bumi's head, on Bumi's wide shoulders, and hopes that this will all be okay.

**4:**

Aang is twelve and he is very cold as ice is bent away from him. He can't hear Appa and feels a vague pang of worry, but he's so tired…

"What have you done now, Kanna?" The thin-faced man demands of the young woman by his side. They're both wearing Water Tribe blue, but the cut of the clothes and the designs on the man's sleeves are entirely unfamiliar from the usual wear Aang remembers from meeting southern water tribesmen.

"Hi," He manages, and then yawns.

The woman looks at him, more than a little disapprovingly. "I thought you'd be a _girl_." She can't be more than five years older than him but she carries herself like a queen, and Aang reflexively tries to huddle back into the snow.

"You would, Kanna" The man sneers at the woman. "Does everything have to be liberation with you?"

"Oh, shove it, Pakku." The girl growls, tugging Aang roughly out of his hollow. "Come on, up with you."

"I'm cold," he sniffles, knowing that he is whining and hating himself for it.

"You're scaring the lad, Kanna, let him breathe. I fear for your children." The man says, reaching for Aang. Kanna deftly fends him off with her elbow.

"It's your sour fish-face that's scaring him—and I don't want children, I thought I made that perfectly clear when I ran away to the other side of the world from you. Don't you have anyone _else_ to go bother? Your little boys' club?"

Pakku sputters indignantly. "They're not little _boys_--"

"Don't tell me you're accepting girls, I won't believe you." Kanna bristles.

"Well for you information, we _aren't_. They might turn out to be like you!"

Aang tries to pull his arm back, with no success. "Ma'am—please--"

"Come along," she says sharply. "Let's get you back to the city before some ship gets wind of you." Aang stumbles to his feet in the wake of her persistent tug.

"But, but what about Appa--"

"Kanna, this is preposterous! Surely even you can see that I should be taking him back to the north—matters of safety demand--" Pakku seizes Aang's shoulder.

"Past the blockades?"

"Kanna, he _must_ come with me--"

"I'm not going anywhere and you can't make me!" Aang shouts, ripping away from them and into the air. He runs towards where he hopes Appa lies, tears already freezing on his cheeks. If he can only get away, get to Appa, maybe this will all be okay...

**5:**

Aang is twelve and very cold as things press into his skin. There is a noise, a voice, and he screams because it feels like fire, cold horrible fire that floods through his veins. He screams and thrashes and hands push him down, hands that feel dead, that feel slick and horrible. They hold him down until he gets the message and stops struggling.

The world drifts slowly into focus and he can only gasp and twitch. There is the sky above him, and dense snow underneath him, and people crouched around him. They have robes on made of silver, and things over their heads like fishbowls, like they have fish heads, and there are needles all through him-- he tries to twist free of their horrible white hands, but they only hold him down again.

"_Can you understand us_?" They are saying, over and over again, their voices a rasping inhuman hum like the call of cicadas. There are a lot of them, maybe five, maybe ten, and dressed in silver and glass they seem to merge and pool together. He can't tell.

"I understand you!" Aang shouts. "Let me _go_!"

They don't let him go.

"_Calm down, Avatar Aang_," One of the things says, bringing its distorted fish-head down close to his face. It smells like nothing he's ever encountered. "_We don't want to hurt you_."

"I don't want you to hurt me either," Aang says, and tries on a smile. "Can I get up?" This close, he can read characters on the figure's robe, picked out in lighter silver. Most of the characters are utterly foreign, twisted, almost malevolent: he can read 'time' and 'soldier' and 'celestial' but everything else is nonsense. This almost scares him more than all the rest of it.

"_No, we can't let you up_." The fish-head turns away, towards someone Aang can't see. The alien characters flicker and dance on his robes. "_Hey, can I get a camera over here? We're only making history! It's not like we're doing anything important!_ "

There is a dense babble from the other silver figures.

"_I thought we were changing_ _history_."

"_What are we going to need pictures for?_"

"_Are you sure this is him?_"

"_Who else would it be? Of course it's him_."

"_We did it. I can't believe it. We actually did it_."

"_Shut up. Let's get him to the ship._"

"_How did he even survive? A hundred years in a glacier? Well, I mean, fifty, I guess._"

"_He's an Avatar, monkey-brain. Do-it-yourself cryogenics is probably a snap_."

"_If you think about it, it seems kind of weird that he's the only one so far to freeze himself_."

"_Not true! Avatar Hotaku would hibernate every winter."_

"_Yeah, but not, like, for the whole--"_

"_We're going to change history. My god_."

"_Hey, you think that's where Avatar Quin went off to?_"

"_No, Quin's definitely dead."_

"_I heard--"_

"_Just get him to the ship."_

"_Take a damn picture already!"_

There is a bright flash, like a shooting star. Aang lies on his back and tries to look friendly. Tries not to panic.

"_Give us a thumbs up, kid."_

"A what?" He asks.

"_Never mind. Hey, isn't he cold?"_

"_I don't know, why are you asking me? Hey, kid, are you cold?"_

Aang looks at the one that addressed him. "Yes. Uh, sir."

"_We'd better get you to the ship."_

He's heaved to his feet, and the needles in his skin pull and burn. He wants to cry-- it feels horrible. He has never felt so scared. "Can you take the needles out of me?"

"_Sorry, no can do."_

"_Wait, we're taking him back to the ship?"_

"I don't want to go to your ship," Aang interjects. One of them pats him on the head, and he shudders. They're clustered all around him, like dolphin-sharks, a shining silver pod of them all around him. They're trying to herd him, ferrying him along across a cracked and broken plain of ice towards a giant silver egg that floats in the ocean.

"_Of course you want to go to the ship. You'll like it. We have, uh, snacks. You like snacks?"_

"_He's twelve, not two. Kid, hey._" One of the figures snaps its fingers in front of Aang's face as if he were a badger-hound.

"What?" Aang looks at it. It bends over a little, a hand on Aang's head, as if it is trying to be friendly.

"_We're taking you back to your dad. You want that, right? Come with us, and we'll take you back, okay? You must miss him awful bad. We just want to help."_

"Who--"

"_It's not his dad, it's his-- what, his mentor? Yeah."_

"_Gitsu."_

"_Gyatso."_

"How do you know him!?" Aang demands, digging in his heels. These monsters know about Monk Gyatso. They know where he is. Icy certainty fills his veins: he has to get away, has to warn the Air Temple. Has to warn his friend.

"_We just know, Aang." _

"Get away from me," Aang says, "I'm warning you!"

"_Kid, calm down--"_

Aang measures the distance to the shining egg, feels the press of their white hands against his spine, their buzzing insectile attention. These people, these celestial time demons are horrible, inhuman, but they are slow and clumsy and their grasp on him is damp and unskilled. He calls all the fury of the antarctic wind into his hands and thinks that it's going to be okay.

**6:**

Aang is twelve and very cold, and doesn't appreciate whoever is prodding him in the stomach. He grumbles and struggles to sit up. Hands come up under his back, helping him. He blinks ice out of his eyes to see a man in Fire Nation reds crouched beside him. The man looks him up and down, then settles back on his heels. He's just barely a man-- he can't be twenty yet, his eyes wide and his armor loose around his shoulders, a boy playing dress-up.

"I'm going to die out here, aren't I?" The Fire Nation guy asks. "I'm starting to hallucinate little dead airbending children."

"I'm not dead!" Aang says indignantly, bursting out of the pile of ice and on to his feet. All the blood rushes out of his head and he wobbles, almost falling over. "Whoah."

"Easy, boy." The man says, steadying him. "Agni's teeth, you're a tiny little guy, aren't you?"

"I am not!" Aang says defiantly. "Maybe you're just big!"

"Maybe I am." The man smiles a little. It makes him look even younger. "Sorry, we're doing this wrong. I'm Jeong Jeong."

"Did you mean to rhyme that? I mean, sorry, I'm Aang." Aang bows, wobbles a little. Jeong Jeong steadies him again. His hands are warm, somehow, the only warm things in the world.

"So what are you doing out here?" Aang asks him. "The south pole is kind of far away from the Fire Nation, isn't it?"

"The south pole is kind of far away from everything." Jeong Jeong says, and shrugs. "That's kind of why I came here. I'm running away."

"Oh. Aang says, and shivers. "Me too."

There is a long pause, and Aang listens to the whistle of the wind. They are at the bottom of some kind of ice canyon, and the wind feels sharp, down here, wilder.

"It's really cold out here." He says.

"Oh, you noticed." Jeong Jeong drawls, and huffs a little flame.

"You don't have to be mean about it." Aang says, and sneezes. When he lands, he looks around for Appa.

"I wouldn't mention it, except we're probably going to die. I mean, I am, and you're a hallucination..." Jeong Jeong follows him, watching with interest as Aang locates Appa around the bend of the canyon walls and jumps on to him. He is sleeping, but sighs when Aang strokes his wet nose. The smell of his fur wakes Aang up a little, makes him feel more like himself.

"Don't worry! I'm not a hallucination and we're not going to die!" Aang hugs Appa, burrowing into his shaggy fur until his friend moans, long and deep, and rolls over. "I have a flying bison!"

"No kidding," Jeong Jeong says. "That thing really flies?"

"You betcha! We can go to one of the Water Tribe villages. There's one just..." Aang looks around, climbs to the top of Appa's head. He has no idea where they are. Everything looks way different from the ground, and didn't he and Appa crash in the water?

"You're lost too?" Jeong Jeong says, and sounds unsurprised.

"Uh..." Aang scratches his scalp. "Of course not. It's... that way!" He points, and looks back at Jeong Jeong. The man sighs, and heaves himself off the ground.

"Sure," He says, and climbs up by Aang. "Why not?"

"Yip yip!" Aang shouts, and they lurch skywards. Jeong Jeong shouts and grabs at his waist and Appa roars and there is nothing but sky all around them, and the rush of wind and laughter and freedom.

Aang is sure that everything is going to be okay.

7:

Aang is twelve and he is very cold as the ice melts around him all in a rush. Appa snores behind him as the boy tries to focus on a stranger in red armor, his helmet tucked under one arm and his broad face drawn in a frown. Behind him a young boy dances on his toes to see around the man's arms. They both have the golden eyes of Fire Nation royalty, and Aang wonders distantly why he's never seen them before.

"_Iroh_," the boy says, impatiently, and Aang realizes they must have been bickering all this time. Sound still feels tinny and strange in his ears. Everything feels vague and cold and very far away.

"I told you, go back to the ship, little brother."

"I'm not a baby, let me see!"

"Slow down," The man, Iroh, admonishes, but he lets the boy see over his elbow. The man's –Iroh's-- eyes are a dark gold color that reminds Aang inexplicably of Kuzon, and he wonders if they're related somehow. Kuzon is only seven, though, and this man has wide shoulders and a neat beard, though his face seems young and his mouth looks like it could hold a smile.

"It's the Avatar," The thin boy with the long hair says. His eyes are dark and wild, and he paces around them like a pygmy-puma, like something full to the brim with a crackling charismatic energy. He looks as if he is about Aang's age or a little younger, and Aang likes him instantly. He hopes that maybe the boy wouldn't mind that he's the avatar, that maybe they could go penguin sledding.

"He's just a child, Ozai." The man makes a warding motion, trying to brush his younger companion away, and is ignored. "And your father told you--"

"Father can go sit on a coal. This _is_ the Avatar. He's my destiny." The boy, Ozai, draws nearer, his toes by Aang's head, and Aang tries to sit up, smiling.

"It's nice to meet you," He mumbles, his tongue feeling slow and sticky in his mouth. "Do you want to go penguin sledding?"

"I said _wait_--" Iroh insists, but the boy's hands are already streaking towards Aang's face, blue flame crackling around his long nails, and Aang doesn't understand.

It was all supposed to be okay.

**8:**

Aang is twelve and his universe is nothing but coldness. He wakes to the sound of far-off voices, of mittens brushing snow off him. Appa, where is Appa? He feels so tired.

"Don't touch him, he could be dangerous," A high, hoarse voice hisses. "An airbender—they're supposed to be able to suck the breath from your lungs soon as look at you!" Aang opens his eyes to see a middle-aged woman with a no-nonsense sort of face and thick threads of gray in her hair leaning over him, a boy about his age hovering over her shoulder. She pulls Aang into a sitting position and wraps her coat around him. Aang stares vaguely upwards and meets the challenging gaze of the boy. The kid has beads in his wild hair and a bone club in one mittened hand, which he jabs threateningly at Aang's face.

"Are you gonna suck our air?" The kid growls.

"Mnngh." Aang says. "No." Then, "I thought it was everyone's air."

"I _knew_ it!" The boy squawks, and raises his club.

"Don't be foolish, love. He's just a child." The older woman brushes snow away from his face. She seems very tired. "Funny, I thought he'd be a girl."

"He could be a trap. A spy." The kid says, and fingers the sharp edge of his club.

"Hush your nonsense. There's no one left to spy _on_."

"Where am I?" Aang murmurs.

"On the edge of the Southern Water City, or what's left of it. I'm Kanna, and the young man who should stand up straight and put that club away before someone gets hurt is Hakoda, but mostly we call him Trouble. I expect you're the Avatar."

"He _is_?" Hakoda says, and takes a step back before he checks himself. "He's awfully small," He sneers, and Aang scowls.

"I'm Aang," He says, and wonders if it even matters.

"Of course you are, dear." Kanna says absently. "Come along, lets get you back to the village. We'll all feel better for some stewed sea prunes." The woman helps him to his feet, strong arms supporting him, and he feels a little better.

Hakoda stares at him as he follows the woman across the ice.

"I'm twelve," He informs Aang, and sticks his jaw out aggressively.

"Gosh, that's a _big_ accomplishment." Aang says with wide eyes, and makes a face at the boy's back when Hakoda, satisfied, struts ahead of them.

He doesn't know yet that he isn't really exaggerating. All he knows is that Kanna is helping him gently across the ice, talking of dinner, and that it's kind of nice to be taken care of again. He feels warm, like he's going to be okay.

**9:**

Aang is twelve and very cold. The air around him is wet and smells like stone, like he's underground. He can't hear Appa anywhere, can't smell him. The air is so heavy around him, so still.

"You're awake," Someone says, and soft hands stroke his face, his eyelids. He blinks, once, and then there is light.

"Where am I?" He asks. The light goes around and around in a circle. He's pretty sure light isn't supposed to do that, or at least, not do that so fast. He follows it with his eyes, trying to focus. He's still sleepy.

"You're safe." The air is so heavy. The voice sounds so soothing.

"But where am I?"

"You're in Ba Sing Se."

"But that's-- that's not where I..." He trails off, unsure. Where did he fall? Where was the storm?

"We found you. You were very sick, but you're better now. We're taking care of you."

"Who are you?" He shivers, but it is only the chill of someone warming up. The light goes around and around. He feels as if he has been sick, as if he has been sick for a long time, all weak and hollow. He wishes the light would stop, he wishes everything would slow down. Where is Appa? Where is Monk Gyatso?

"I'm your friend. My name is Long Feng."

"I'm Aang," He says, and yawns. The chair is made of stone, but very comfortable. "Nice to meet you."

There is a laugh, as soft and heavy as the darkness. "It's nice to meet you too."

Aang watches the light for a while. He's so sleepy. He feels like maybe he should be worried, like maybe something's not right. Something's not okay.

"...Long Feng?" He asks, and yawns.

"Yes, Aang?"

"What's going on?"

"Just watch the light, Aang. Everything is going to be okay."

Aang watches the light. It goes around and around, and the air is warm and soothing around him, like a hug, like something friendly and familiar. The light goes around and around, and he thinks that everything is going to be okay.

**10:**

Aang is twelve and very cold. He's lying on his back, wind like the hand of an old friend brushing across his face. It says _welcome back_ to him, _welcome back_, and he opens his eyes with a smile. It's the kind of cold Aang feels when he wakes up in the morning and jumps out of his window before dawn, a clean, invigorating kind of chill. There's a girl above him, and when their eyes meet, she smiles back.

He thinks she's the prettiest girl he's ever seen, and he's seen princesses.

"Do you want to go penguin sledding with me?" He blurts out, and she blinks, looks surprised, and he supposes that he should feel bad for that or something. He is so cold, but all he can see is the blue of her eyes, the blue of the sky. They're the same color, and he doesn't feel tired at all.

Everything is going to be okay.


End file.
